


Stay Here, Stay Here (With Me)

by Crimson_Voltaire



Category: Deadpool (Movieverse)
Genre: Angst, Bae Arthur, Fluff and Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, M/M, Nate Helps, Nate wears Wade's shirt, New Year's Eve, Wade is sad, drinking buddies, goofballs in love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-01
Updated: 2019-01-01
Packaged: 2019-10-01 22:29:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17252567
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Crimson_Voltaire/pseuds/Crimson_Voltaire
Summary: The bottle isn’t that big, and with four good sized drinks poured, it’s almost half empty already. So Wade sips this time, actually tasting the alcohol. He rolls it around on his tongue, and then turns to look at Nate. As usual, he finds Nate looking at him, warm honey and gold eyes and concern wedged between those brows. Nate gives him a little half smile when he’s made, not even bothering to hide the fact that Wade caught him staring.[Wade shares a drink - or several - with Nate at the end of the year]





	Stay Here, Stay Here (With Me)

**Author's Note:**

> Wrote this in a couple of hours for New Years because I'm a suck. Therefore edited but unbeta'd. All mistakes are my own. Let me know what you think!

* * *

The roar of the crowd twenty stories down only seems to grow as the time passes. Bodies amass like the snowflakes that drift down from the sky, pooling into a writhing, seething mass of colour and sound five blocks wide. The crowd is loud, the music louder. Lights from the stage flash and dance and wave and every once and a while thousands of tiny screens will light up to follow the slow pulse of a song.

 Wade remembers being down in that crowd, not so long ago. Three years, maybe, when he and Ness were still young and beautiful; before the cancer or Weapon X or mercenary work caught up with them. He’s pretty sure he still has the pictures, shoved in a shoe box under his bed. Still has the memories too; the way Vanessa’s eyes lit up when the ball started to drop, the thundering of his heart when she turned to smile up at him, wide and excited and stunning, the way her lips tasted of cheap beer and lip gloss when they kissed on the stroke of midnight.

Tonight he’s got at least part of it, he thinks to himself as he raises the bottle to his lips. Cheap beer, courtesy of Nate, though Wade’s pretty sure he finished the sixer Nate bought for them about three cases back. He doesn’t keep track anymore, just drains the can and lines it up with the other empties he’s collecting on the roof. Wade reaches out to grab another and swears when he comes up empty. 

“Need a drink?”   
  
“Jesus fucking Christ!” Wade nearly falls off the roof.   
  
And that would be a real shame, because he isn’t quite sure he could regrow his legs and straighten his spine before midnight. Great way to ring in 2019 eh? Broken legs, shattered pelvis, the works? But he’s a mercenary, an assassin and did a decade in special forces. Wade’s a lot more agile and flexible than you might believe given his tendency to run headlong into deadly weaponry.

He wobbles then rights himself, twisting to glare behind him, where the voice is coming from. Cable – Nate – with a bottle of the good stuff and two tumblers. Despite it being ten minutes to January, it’s a mild night. The snow falls, yes, but it’s thick and fluffy and the clouds trap the heat of the city, keeping it around freezing. Nate’s in his winter jacket, olive green with the ridiculous fur fringe on the hood that Wade loves, and a pair of soft, worn jeans. And –

“Holy shit, is that my Bea Arthur shirt?”   
  
It is too, the fucker. The tank hangs low on Nate’s chest, exposing his glorious collarbones and the trench between his pecs. It also shows off the infection, eating away at the healthy flesh. The lights from the concert flare across the metal, streaks of colour that shift and streak and highlight the delicate cording and tiny calipers that let Nate move and twist and fight. It also plays up Nate's ridiculous, toned musculature that makes you wanna lick water off him after a shower. No? Is that a Wade thing? He swallows and adverts his eyes.   
  
“Three questions. First – where’s everyone else? Second – why the _fuck_ are you wearing my favourite shirt? They paid ten grand for me to wear that in the first movie, we don’t have the kind of budget to be doing it again. And third, did you steal that from Colossus?”   
  
Nate snorts and shakes his head. He ambles over to Wade, bottle and tumblers in hand, with the easy, predatory grace he does everything with. After setting the tumblers on the ledge and handing the bottle to Wade, he hauls himself up and swings his legs over the side the same way Wade’s done, letting them dangle over the crowd. The glasses fill themselves, finding homes in their hands.   
  
“Inside, playing board games. Russell burnt my shirt when we lit the candles on the cake so I dug this one out of the clean hamper. And yes. I can’t wait to see his reaction when he finds out.”   
  
The deadpan delivery nearly makes Wade choke on whiskey and they both end up snorting like bulls, sniggering into their drinks imagining Colossus’s face whenever he figures it out. That's some shit Wade would pull. Poor Colossus is never going to guess it was Nate.

Speaking of which; Nate holds out his glass, amber sloshing against fine, bargain shelf crystal, for Wade to toast him. They toss it back like it’s water and the glasses fill themselves again.

The bottle isn’t that big, and with four good sized drinks poured, it’s almost half empty already. So Wade sips this time, actually tasting the alcohol. Or rather, tastes the bitter burn of ethanol and pretends that he actually finds something enjoyable about this other than getting hammered as fast as possible. His eyes drift skywards, unshielded by the mask tonight, and watches the snowflakes. If you can drown out the constant thrum of the city and the living beast that is the mass below them, if you can ignore the lights and the buildings surrounding them and look skyward, it’s rather peaceful. The flakes that settle and melt on his skin feel almost like tears, or rain, not big enough to leave trails when they turn to water, but that’s alright.

Wade takes another sip of whiskey, rolls it around on his tongue, and then turns to look at Nate. As usual, he finds Nate looking at him, warm honey and gold eyes and concern wedged between those brows. Nate gives him a little half smile when he’s made, not even bothering to hide the fact that Wade caught him staring. Not that Wade minds that, either; Nate’s stares are never cruel. Once Wade got used to them, the feeling of his skin crawling and wanting to crawl out of his skin went away. So instead, he raises his glass again, clinking it against Nate’s, and drinks.

“Can’t be long now,” Nate says, voice almost lost in the rumble of the crowd. It’s like tectonic plates shifting, the earth’s crust opening and shearing and thundering, gearing up for something more. Wade hums in agreement, scanning the crowd and then Nate’s face. The half-light of the city sits heavy on his weathered and scarred features, getting lost in shadows and glinting in the day old stubble he forgot to shave off this afternoon in their mad-dash to get ready. Nate’s left eye shifts, side eyeing Wade, and then his lip twitches like he can actually hear what Wade’s thinking, before he returns to gazing at the performer on stage.   
  
“Still can’t believe you want to spend your very first New Year’s Eve with little old me on this rooftop instead of down there.” Wade gestures to the throng directly below them. Someone’s violently hurling into a conveniently placed trashcan. Nate snorts and Wade can tell he’s rolling his eyes, even if it isn’t visible.   
  
“What, and get robbed or groped by some drunk fool? Nah, I can do that up here. ‘sides, I like the company, even if I can’t understand the bullshit that spews out your mouth half the time.”   
  
And the way he turns and gives Wade that sharp, wolfish grin when he says it is proof that Nate doesn’t mean a thing by it. Okay, lies – he does like Wade’s company, who wouldn’t – but he’s teasing. Wade likes that, old man can give it as good as he gets.

 He throws back his head and laughs, baring his face skywards again. Nate’s chuckle is like an earthquake too, a trembling growl deep in his chest that makes Wade’s heart and stomach do the butterfly thing. When he sobers, Wade finishes his drink and lets Nate refill it one last time. It definitely won’t be long now; the last vestiges of the concert are dying away into the streets, leaving the throb of the crowd and the rhythm of the city to be the soundtrack to the new year.

“Hard to believe it’s been eight months,” Nate muses, breaking the peace between them.

Wade straightens and grips his glass harder than he means. The ache in his chest that never really goes away flares, bright and white hot like the sun before easing. Cheap crystal creaks, ominous and foreboding and Wade has to remind himself not to shatter it. Poor tumbler never did anything to deserve that. Besides, he’d be pissed at himself if he spilled this ridiculously expensive, stolen whiskey. Wade drinks again to provide an alibi for his musings. Eight months? Nine without Ness. Almost an entire year. An entire, fucking, gut wrenching, sole sucking year.

He must be projecting, because Nate’s ridiculous triangle torso twists, until he’s facing Wade completely, and offers him a sad, small smile. His left eye flares. Wade wants to hate him in that moment, but he really can’t.   
  
“She’s proud of you, wherever she is, Wade.”   
  
**Yeah, right** , Yellow Box snorts.   
  
“For what?” Wade voices what White Box is thinking. It comes out a little sadder and broken then acerbic, which is really not what he was going for. Nate holds up his hands, flesh and metal palms to Wade; a peace offering for whatever shit he’s gonna say, before shrugging and murmuring, “For living.”   
  
The crowd descends into a hush. Rather than offering a retort, Wade glances out and then mutters, “The ball’s dropping.”   
  
Nate turns to look, too, enraptured for maybe two seconds as the city winds up. Thousands and thousands of voices join in the count down, so loud it could shake glass. When Wade was down there, all that time ago, it rattled his teeth and got into the marrow of his bones and made him feel alive in a way he never understood. And fuck, three years later he’s still alive, in another way. A way he does understand, even if he doesn’t want to. Fucking Nate, bringing it up right now. Wade turns back to Nate to give him hell for being miserable tonight; that’s Wade’s shtick.   
  
Ah fuck-nuggets, he’s staring again.   
  
“Five!”   
  
Nate gives him that soft, fond smile he saves for when Wade’s saying stuff he doesn’t understand. Wade used to akin it to someone looking at their particularly stupid golden retriever that ate something it shouldn’t have and shit all over the living room. Now, he isn’t so sure.   
  
“Four!”

Nate raises his glass, a third and final toast to see out 2018 and all of its shit. Wade toasts him, and they murmur, “To 2019,” in unison as the crowd counts down “three” and “two”.   
  
Everyone’s gearing up for “one”, shouting it, when Wade blurts out, “You gonna kiss me or what?”

“Happy New Year!”   
  
**Happy New Year!**  
  
 _Happy New Year!_  
  
It’s positively deafening. The fireworks and the crowd, Wade means. The kiss is mind blowing too, Nate’s lips soft but firm. He tastes like whiskey and maybe a hint of lip balm, possibly the Chinese food they had for dinner. Wade doesn’t care. He’s sure he tastes much the same. Reaching out, he cups Nate’s cheek, letting his gun callouses catch on stubble and catalogues the shudder it gets him for future reference. When they pull away, they’re both a little light headed. Could be the booze, Wade thinks, but nah, it’s probably the kiss.   
  
“Happy New Year, Nate.”   
  
“Happy New Year, Wade.”   
  
Here’s to many more.

* * *

 

**Post Credits**  
  
Wade does fall off the roof. He shifts to get a better angle because kissing Nate like this is giving him a real crick in his neck, and one butt cheek shifts a _little_ too far off the ledge and he’s gone. Nate catches him though, before he can go splat or scar any of the party-goers below, floating Wade up to the balcony and only dropping him once, a little bit, because he’s howling so hard _he_ falls off the ledge backwards.

**Author's Note:**

> I know Wade's characterization is a little subdued, but given the circumstances I think it's understandable. Poor Wade. Nate'll hug him, I'm sure. 
> 
> Thanks for reading! Kudos/comments are appreciated!


End file.
